The GONG REMAINS THE SAME

Jack Barron celebrates the 40-year celestial trip of ‘Europe’s Grateful Dead’…..

Gong are a phenomenon, quite literally in a world of their own. Together with Soft Machine, they pioneered ambient, chill out and free-jazz freak outs. And to understand where they’re coming from, we need to look at founder Daevid Allen’s musical and artistic history.

Allen was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1938. He was a childhood radio actor, went to the national Art Gallery School and ended up training as a TV graphics artist. His drawings and artwork can be found all over the sleeves of both Gong and his own albums.

“My family were merchants and it gave me the horrors at a very early age. So I am determined to stay on the outer rim of commerciality as much as possible while still surviving,” he explains. Inspired by Beat Generation writers like Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, Daevid travelled to England via Paris in 1960.

“I am not really a hippy. I’m much more of a beatnik. That’s where all my energy started as a young man.”

In Paris, he stayed at the Beat Hotel and got to know the minimalist composer Terry Riley. He hooked up with William Burroughs and performed theatre pieces based on the Burroughs novel, The Ticket That Exploded. Daevid also become aware of the music and philosophies of Sun Ra.

When he arrived in England, he formed a free jazz outfit called …

by Jack Barron
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